Roundup: A six-point sham
Over the weekend, Andrew Scheer went to Calgary to further outline his “economic vision,” which included a short-term six-party plan which…does nothing about the economy. Those six parts are to scrap the federal carbon price, repeal Bill C-69, repeal Bill C-48 and end any tanker ban in northern BC, establish timelines for project approvals, end the “foreign interference” in project approvals, and invoke the constitutional authority to build major projects. Do you see a pattern here?
To be clear, these six proposals are all, well, hot air. Ending the federal carbon price won’t get energy projects built – most oil and gas companies are in favour of it. Repealing Bill C-69 won’t help because the 2012 environmental assessment legislation the Conservatives put into place just wound up in litigation, and that will continue if he reverts to it. Ending the tanker ban won’t have any measurable impact because there are no pipelines in the area, no plans for any, and if he thinks he can revive Northern Gateway then he didn’t pay attention to the reasons why the Federal Court revoked its approval. Establishing timelines for approvals? Again, nice in theory, but without a framework behind it (like Bill C-69 would ostensibly provide), it will likely mean yet more litigation. That “foreign interference” in project approvals is largely the conspiracy theories that the conservative movement is clinging to (ignoring the foreign funds that go into their own thinktanks like the Fraser Institute). And that “constitutional authority” is not a magic wand, and would only sow confusion because any project that crosses a provincial boundary is already a federally regulated project, so there’s nothing to invoke. So Scheer’s “six point plan” should perhaps better be called a “six point sham.”
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